


Leo & Grace

by kesleyjo



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: All the Flirting, All the banter, Dream Sharing, F/M, FP is trying really hard to be a good dad, Minor Angst, Mutual Pining, Pining, Sarcastic!Jughead, Sassy!Betty, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-09-22 15:17:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17062199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kesleyjo/pseuds/kesleyjo
Summary: Jughead Jones had always dreamed someone else's dreams.As odd as it was, the different characters from his dreamer's life became more real to him than his faceless classmates in Toledo, providing an escape from the dull life it offered.That escape was enough, until Jughead moved to Riverdale with his dad to finish his senior year, and all the faces from his dreams start showing up in real life, rocking his understanding and his reality.The most important of which, was the beautiful blonde who dreamed his dreams. His very own Grace Kelly.





	1. Everybody's looking for something

Jughead Jones dreamed someone else’s dreams.

Not in the figurative sense, as in he was following someone else’s path for his life. His mother was simply trying to raise him without Jughead turning to the bottle or crime, and if she could do that, then she might start worrying about his long-term future. Jellybean was too young and too rebellious to put much thought into her brother’s future, as much as she loved and wanted the best for him. Hell, even his high-school counselor, upon observing that his grades were pristine, despite his less that advantageous upbringing, deemed Jughead “good-to-go” and was satisfied with slipping him local community college brochures every semester. But even without their interference, Jughead was well on his way to being the first Jones to enter college in at least three generations, hopefully forging a path that Jellybean could follow if she so wished.

No, Jughead meant he literally dreamed someone else’s dreams.

He was not always cognizant of that fact, though. In elementary school, each other’s dreams were not exactly the talk of the schoolyard. Analyzing one’s subconscious over a game of four square was not as important as discussing just how many boogers Joe Boonie ate during reading time. And really, Jughead met and forgot so many people in his day to day goings on as a child, strange faces could easily show up in his dreams, his subconscious detailing what his distracted conscious could not.

Entering middle school raised the first suspicion that something strange was afoot in dreamland. It was when he started reading more books on his own, and above his age’s typical reading level that Jughead noticed his dreams did not match the descriptions of any other. No one from his life populated the characters of his dreams, and none of them ever were from his perspective.

At first Jughead assumed it was his already wild imagination. He was constantly dreaming up characters and fictional scenarios, why not extend that into his subconscious? But during a health class when he was twelve he was finally confronted with the truth of the matter when his teacher informed them that dreams were a way for our subconscious to explore or solve underlying issues in our minds. That everyone who appeared in a dream had to have been encountered in one’s waking life. Full of disbelief, Jughead spent hours at the local branch of the Toledo library until he reached one final conclusion. His dreams belonged to someone else.

He was not, however, entirely sure of just whose they were. Unfortunately, that day’s trip to the library revealed that one’s own face, name and details were often unseen and unheard in dreams, and why would they need to be? Dreamers knew what their names were and what they looked like, why did it need to be said in dreams?

He started writing down everything he knew about her. First was that, even though he had never heard her name or seen her face, she was…well…a she. She had a red-headed best friend named Archie, and a red-headed nemesis named Cheryl. She also had a blonde sister, and a blonde mother, and so Jughead surmised, even though that he had never seen the locks in question, she too was blonde.

That was not all he knew.

She was kind.

Jughead, naturally spent countless hours studying the nature and purpose of dreams in effort to gain some sort of sense behind his predicament. He learned that most dreams’ purpose was to face and consider some of the more prevalent issues of one’s day or life. But his dreamer was constantly concerned with the problems of others, and her dreams were spent fixing the issues of others, or in other instances feeling failure for not helping others adequately. If Jughead could dream he was certain it would be filled with convincing his dreamer she was too kind for her own good, and that no one who truly knew her would ever feel let down by her.

She was endlessly curious and imaginative.

Many of her dreamscapes took place in something straight out of wonderland. Purple porcupines, orange pigs with wings and long tails, plants whose petals wore colors almost too vibrant for anyone’s imagination. She questioned and explored with vigor, constructing these worlds and challenging their laws. Even as she aged, she never lost her curiosity. Sometimes after waking, Jughead would try and sketch her worlds, to capture them with the mundane colors of the real world. And while Jughead was never entirely successful, even the pale glimpses into her imagination gave him relief on some of his worst days.

She was brave.

While she never committed acts of violence herself, she did not shy away from them, determined to help those hurt, or bring to justice those who committed them. Complimentary to her desire to fix the problems of others, she was tenacious in that pursuit. Although it was entirely possible her dreams showed a bravado that was missing in the real world, he had no doubt that she would walk through fire to save someone who could not save themselves.

She was silly.

She had a propensity to imagine her mother as talking in cartoon voices, and they got increasingly ridiculous as she got older. Much like the imaginative world in which the dreams took place, they were also often filled with ridiculous scenarios. She once had a dream where she was leading an army of penguins into a hugging war with a legion of miniature t-rexes. Between the flippers and the tiny rex arms that dream had him laughing for days after.

After a while she became something like a friend to Jughead, more real to him than most of his classmates, who he knew so little about. When Jughead had reached his early teens, he put a face to his Hitchcock blonde, at least in his mind.

His very own Grace Kelly.

He was also gaining an appreciation for the supporting characters in her life. Polly was a little ridiculous, but she seemed to share the kindness and tenacity of her sister. Kevin, if he was portrayed accurately in her dreams, was a constant pop culture bon mot generator. Cheryl was more of a force of nature than a human, and while his dreamer was clearly terrified her, there was respect for such a force. Reggie, a stereotypical jock, was at the very least a constant source of ridicule as he increasingly became more and more a caricature of himself.

There were several figures in her life that were of the most interest to Jughead, however. First and foremost was her best friend, and apparent next door neighbor, Archie.

A prominent fixture for as long a Jughead could remember, his role in Grace’s life changed and shifted slowly over the years. If they were the same age, and he thought they were, it was when she was thirteen that her feelings regarding her friend started to shift to something much stronger. He appeared almost every night in her dreams and looked permanently processed by the most flattering instagram filter. Within the next year, every week would feature either a dream of her confessing her feelings to Archie, or having him finally kiss her and tell her that she was the only girl for him. For a while there, Jughead was rooting for them. Archie seemed like a good guy, but that was how she saw him he supposed. She would not be attracted to a guy that drove her crazy.

Things took a turn for the interesting when they were fifteen and a new face started showing up in Grace’s dreams. A small spitfire of a latina named Veronica burst into Grace’s life bringing more color and ferocity than were present before, which was quite a feat, given their previous vibrancy. She was seen in Grace’s dreams as friend and confidante, which confused Jughead increasingly when Archie and Veronica were viewed more and more as couple in Grace’s dreams.

She certainly was negatively affected by this development. Her dreams, for a good month or so took on somber blue hues, and were tamer, lacking their creativity and humour. Over a while, she recovered, bringing back that spark that Jughead had desperately been missing, but the pain and longing surrounding Veronica and Archie still loomed over her dreams.

Then there was Leo.

Celebrities were non-existent in her dreams except for her inexplicable obsession with 90’s flavor Leonardo diCaprio. He was in almost in every single dream of hers, factoring anywhere from a cameo to a full blown participant. In the dream with the hugging penguins and t-rexes, he was the cheerleader and judge, mocking Grace on the futility of the entire endeavour. She dreamed frequently of being chased, and Leo was either running with her, or he caught her as she fell. During a particularly harrowing rejection dream from Archie, it was Leo who held her close, wiping the tears from her face, and telling her a love worthy of her was out there somewhere. It always struck Jughead as odd, but everyone had their quirks and he was not about to fault his Grace for hers.

While Jughead fully recognized the entire situation was utterly mind-bending, by the time he was seventeen and facing down the barrel of his senior year in high school, it was such a part of his daily life that it barely registered on his list of worrisome thoughts. Indeed, just shy of his senior year, his life was about to face yet another upheaval.

At the end of July, with the heat suffocating his family in their small trailer, his mother sat him down at the formica table, pushing him into the far corner, increasing the unbearable claustrophobia of the situation.

“Jughead, I wanted to talk to you, about your father, and your upcoming senior year.”

Jughead almost shook his head with confusion, uncertain of how those two concepts could meld together in a coherent topic of conversation. “Okay?”

Gladys took a deep belaboured sigh, a sigh that Jughead was all too familiar with. His mother had taken him and Jelly away from their alcoholic father when Jughead was five, away from a life he could barely remember. The departure was the right choice, and he conceded that his mother was brave and strong to follow through with such a decision. But she wore that albatross proudly. And loudly.

Every new pair of shoes, every signing of a permission slip was an act of martyrdom that Gladys sighed and lamented to her children either as she was coming home from a job or headed out to another. Jughead was grateful to his mother, but he was resentful of how she made him feel about that sacrifice.

So as Gladys took that sigh, Jughead braced himself for the guilt she would be positioning him to feel.

“I was finally able to land that banking job at Glass City Financial, I start in a week,” Gladys began leaning back in her chair and peering at her eldest child measuring his reaction with every word.

Luckily for Jughead, he did not have to feign his positive reaction, “Wow, that’s great...congratulations.”

Gladys let a small smug smile slip as she thanked him, but quickly rearranged her face into the suffering victim act she had long ago perfected. “Unfortunately the training program is three months long and pays at a lower rate than the job itself would. I cannot afford to keep any of my other jobs during this time, so it will be a bit tight...financially.”

Jughead had to concentrate fully to refrain from raising his eyebrows, things had always been tight financially, but they had enough saved for a three month lull, especially if a new stable salary was on the horizon. But Gladys had found an excuse, and she was going to ride it through faithfully.

“Luckily for us, your father has offered to take you in, and you will be taking your senior year at Riverdale High. This is a great opportunity for me Jughead, and after everything I have went through to get us here, I am hoping you will go without argument.” The way Gladys voiced her threat, she wanted Jughead to challenge, to give her an excuse to itemize all of the sacrifices she has made for her children.

Jughead forced his face to stay calm and just the right amount of affronted. Enough to make Gladys feel like he was doing her a favor, but subtle enough that she would not rejoin with her own tirade, “Sure, Mom. It will be nice having some time with Dad before I head off to college.”

Gladys narrowed her eyes at her son but just gave him a nod as she told him he would be leaving in three weeks, just a week before his senior year would start. Jughead responded with a nod, as Gladys left their trailer for her waitressing job. He counted to five before he launched himself from table and into Jellybean’s room a mere five leaps away. She was laying still on her bed feeling the emotions of whatever band was currently pumping through her headphones, as Jughead jumped onto the bed, jostling his sister and earning her ire.

“Jug, come on I do not invade your personal time.” Jellybean, who was twelve going on fifty, certainly did nothing but invade his “personal time” but that was not anything to quibble about given the news Gladys just dropped on him. He laid back dramatically on the bed and moved his face slightly to get his sister in view.

Jughead was not one for burying the lede, “I’m moving to Riverdale with Dad for senior year,” he watched Jellybean carefully as he did his best to temper the smile that was threatening to erupt.

“What?! Oh my god, please tell me I get to come with you!?”

“Nope, you still get Toledo duty squirt, but play your cards right, maybe Gladys will dump you off next year.” Jellybean nodded in agreement, but could not bring herself to agree vocally. It was true that they both would rather live with their dad in Riverdale, but both felt the guilt of the unfairness of that feeling.

Their dad had gotten sober five years ago, and had made every conscious effort to be a present and loving father. He made the long ride to Toledo for every Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter and birthday with another half a dozen visits sprinkled in for good measure. He clearly had become the favored parent in his sobriety, even though both Jughead and Jellybean had been too young to remember him at his worst. Gladys resented this, and Jughead admitted she probably had the right to, as her suffering was spawned from FP in the first place.

Jughead also knew, however, that even before his dad had gotten sober, he had been providing financially for him and Jelly, further raising his suspicions on what exactly Gladys was spending their money on. He had kept the books himself, and let the knowledge that Gladys kept half of their income for herself ease whatever guilt he might harbour for his preference toward FP.

“When do you leave?” Jellybean was suddenly serious, hit with the realization that her strongest ally was about to be at least a day’s travel away.

“Not for three weeks.” JB pursed her lips, in thought, trying to chase the sadness from her face, sadness she could not hide from her brother. “But hey, I’m only a phone call away, squirt. Come on let's go to the record store and I will buy your forgiveness.” Jellybean’s mood quickly improved as she scrambled off the bed with a squeal to put on her combat boots, footwear Jughead deemed rather ridiculous for the summer, but he was not about to vocalize that judgement.

Jellybean was his only real friend in Toledo, and the only person he would miss once he left this town. Sure he had friends at school and at the two jobs he worked, but they were more acquaintances of convenience that would easily melt away in his absence. A few of them made half hearted claims to keep in touch over the next three weeks as he said his farewells, but they were shadows of any real intent, and Jughead would be grateful for the relatively clean break.

He had every intention of going to NYU for some sort of writing – creative, investigative or otherwise – degree, and finishing his schooling instate would help once the time for financial aid drew near. Yes, he knew that Riverdale offered nothing but improvement for the upcoming year, and yet as the day for his departure grew nearer, so did his uncertainty and fear.

It was times like these Jughead wished he dreamed his own dreams, so that his subconscious could work out some its frustration unconsciously, but at the very least Grace’s dreams had been unnaturally soothing as of late. No hectic or strange goings on populated the dreams, but were rather commonplace and comforting. Sitting with Leo and Archie on the banks of the river. Helping a girl with dark hair mend a scraped knee. Aiding Veronica in the search for a perfect skirt. Granted the last dream held no personal interest to him, but the calmness and sense of accomplishment Grace felt on helping her friend helped ease his nerves as he boarded a plane to New York, ready to face his new life.

***

“Boy, how about some burgers with the old man tonight. Celebrate you starting school tomorrow.”

Jughead chuckled as he unloaded another heap of books onto the already sagging shelf. “You know I never say no to burgers dad, but since that has been our meal every other day of the week, I’ve got ask what makes these celebratory?”

“These are Pop’s burgers boy, my poor grilling skills pale in comparison. We’ll even sit in a booth and everything. I feel bad I haven’t shown you around Riverdale, get ya comfortable before tomorrow.”

“It’s fine dad, this school is much smaller than my high school in Toledo, I promise to not get lost,” he made the scouts honor salute towards FP as he grabbed his jacket. Even after all these years he was happy to see his leather jacket free of a Serpent on its back.

“Come on boy, that mess will still be there when we get back.” Jughead had never thought he had many possessions, how could he really, when he resided in a double wide with two other inhabitants. However, the main reason he had not been exploring the mid-sized town of Riverdale was that he was too busy unpacking his seemingly endless pile of possessions. And Jughead had to admit, it was nice just having his dad to himself for a bit.

Upon arriving in Riverdale, Jughead was surprised when FP drove his beat up truck up to a small house on the Northside/Southside border, and not the familiar trailer at Sunnyside. FP had saved up enough working as foreman for his old buddy Fred Andrews, that he was finally able to buy and fix up a small but cozy three bed, two bath house at the start of the summer. Apparently FP wanted both JB and Jug to move in with him, but Gladys, wanting one less child, but still a fair share of child support, kept JB with her. A problem that FP intended to fix with a lawyer when the time was right.

On the way to this “Pop’s” place, Jughead did take the time to observe his surroundings. A sense of odd familiarity began to seep into his brain, making him nervous until he shrugged it off. All small towns bore some similarity to each other, and he had seen enough movies and television shows to build a solid picture in his mind of a town just like this.

When they pulled up into the parking lot of Pop’s however, the unease returned with full force. Although he had never been here before, he recognized this place. He knew what the layout of the diner was, the print of the floor, the exact red of the vinyl. His expression must have betrayed him, as FP considered him with a worried look, “You alright, Jug?”

Jughead shook his head, in attempt to show that he was fine and to shake away whatever uncertainty he was feeling. “Yeah, just a strange case of deja vu.”

“Well I did used to take you here as a kid all of the time, you loved the burgers event then,” FP offered with a chuckle, opening the door with small chime of the bell hanging over the door. Almost immediately upon entering, a older gentleman with the kindest face Jughead had ever seen made his way toward them. “FP Jones, I have been waiting all week for you to bring your boy in! You must be Jughead, gosh you’ve grown into such a fine young man.” Without hesitation, Pop pulled him into a hug. “Welcome back Jughead, burgers and milkshakes on the house.”

“Come on Pop, that’s not…”

“Oh keep your money, FP. Let me treat you and your boy.” FP gave him a sheepish grin as they put in their orders and sidled into a booth.

Boy was his dad right.

Jughead liked to think of himself a connoisseur of burgers. Bacon cheeseburgers, mushroom and swiss, animal style, even had one of those juicy lucy concoctions on a school trip to Minneapolis. So it was with absolute certainty that Jughead could say the Pop made the best burger in the world. Or at least the greater United States. Jughead had finished both the burger and fries and was halfway through his chocolate milkshake as his dad took his third bite of his burger. He just shook his head and chuckled, waving Pop over and asking him to have another burger ready to-go in 15 minutes. Pop gave Jughead a nodding look of approval as he finished off the perfect milkshake.

Just as his dad was polishing off his own meal (with a little fry assistance from Jughead), a young man about Jughead’s age shyly approached the booth, with a tentative wave towards FP. FP, however welcomed the boy with gusto, reaching up to grip his shoulders.

“Well, hey there Fogarty, how is your old man doing? Get back from the hospital ok?”

“Yeah he got back last night, his leg is healing fine, wanted to thank you for fixing the roof in his absence.” The boy noticed Jughead, and although they had never met, he gave him a small wave and a kind smile.

“Least I could do. Oh! Where are my manners, Fangs Fogarty, this is my son Jughead Jones, Jughead this is Fangs.”

Instantly taking a liking to the kid Jughead asked, “Are you senior too?”

“Senior, yes, but not at Riverdale, I go to Southside High, but you should come hang out with us sometime. My boyfriend will be a senior at Riverdale, and his friends kind of meshed with ours.” Fangs gave a shrug and his dad laughed.

“You kids doing are much better job of mending town class wars than the adults.”

Fangs shrugged and added, “You and Mr. Andrews do alright too.” Fangs shifted uncomfortably, “Listen, I know the summer is over but I wanted to ask you and Mr. Andrews if I could stay on and work after school on weekends...with my dad not able to work for a few months–”

“We’d be happy to keep you on Fangs, don’t worry about that,” FP interrupted.

Fangs’ worry melted off of him, making him look even younger that he actually was.

“Want to join us Fogarty? We were just finishing up, but we could stay and chat for a while.”

Fangs smiled but waved but towards a booth gesturing for his companion to come over, “I am here with my boyfriend actually, but Jughead you should meet him, have a friendly face for tomorrow…”

Fangs might have said something else. But Jughead didn’t hear it. He could not hear anything but the blood pounding in his ears. He was certain that he had never met Fangs or his boyfriend before, his father’s introduction confirmed that, but he blinked several times in effort to understand what he was seeing in front of him. He knew this boy from Grace’s dreams. Maybe he just looks like him maybe his name won’t be…

“Kevin Keller, nice to meet you! And what might your name be Mr. Steely Blue-Eyes.”

Bless Fangs for giving a moment for Jughead to quickly slip on a confident persona as he nudged his boyfriend with a playful “Hey I am right here,” so that by the time they returned to Jughead he was calm to an outside audience.

“Jughead Jones, nice to meet you, Kevin.”

“Ugh and that voice of yours. Do you have someone to show you around tomorrow?”

This time FP interjected, “Actually I figured we would head over to Fred’s after this and you can meet his son. I have to go over there early tomorrow and it’s a quick walk to school from there if that’s okay?”

“Oh Archie! He’s a hottie and a friend to all, you’ll have to sit with us at lunch. Ta-ta.”

Archie.

Fuck.

Holy.

Nope.

Jughead had spent seventeen years faking it til he made it, and it was the only reason he could give Kevin and Fangs a cocky nod as they went back to their table. While his dad went to pick up his to-go order, Jughead tried to rearrange his thoughts into order. Kevin was real, and he acted exactly like he anticipated he would, not a fluke or figment of his imagination. And now Archie.

Archie.

Whose house they were about to go to.

Right now.

Archie. Who lived next door to….

Oh shit.

“Ready to go, Jug?”

“Uh, yeah”

Yeah. Yeah?!

Jughead may have blacked out in the car, his terror and confusion threatening his perfectly practiced exterior which was he barely held, eating the to-go burger in a trance as a if it would give him clarity. He came to at the lack of movement from the truck, and the sound of his father’s voice calling out to him. FP was already standing on the sidewalk of what, presumably, was the Andrews residence.

An older, handsomely grisled man made his way onto the front porch, calling back inside towards another figure Jughead could see moving behind the screen door. Mechanically, Jughead greeted Fred Andrews after an introduction from his father, but his eyes were trained on the young man bursting through the front door with an energetic golden retriever.

It was Archie, unquestionably, with his shock of red hair and boyish grin. But there were differences as well. Although still a striking figure, he was shorter than he had anticipated, Jughead himself beating him by a few inches. He was full of more sharp lines than he thought he would be. Grace had always seen him softly, almost as if she were looking at human innocence, but there was clearly a streak of devil in the guy that stood before him now.

“Hey man, you must be FP’s son...Jughead right? Good to meet you.” Archie reached out and pulled him into a hug, and since it was something that the Archie from Grace’s dreams would do, he could not find it in him to be surprised, returning the gesture with equal gusto.

“Can you two stay for a bit? FP there are some plans for the new site I want to go over before we break ground tomorrow.” Fred asked, a look of amusement on his face at his son’s eagerness to greet a new friend.

FP looked questioningly over at his son, letting the decision fall to him, but Archie was already brilliantly lit with the idea.

“That’s perfect we just ordered too much pizza, and I was looking for someone to demolish in Call of Duty…” Archie had already slung his arm around Jughead and was ready to lead him inside.

In reality, Jughead and Archie had been acquainted for all of two minutes. Jughead for insane but oddly logical reasons felt that he had known Archie his whole life, which in a batshit way he had. Or at least a version of him, and given what he knew about Grace, that was probably the best version of Archie. What surprised Jughead was how easy and willing Archie was to accept _him_. He was already joking with him as if they had been building that relationship their whole lives. It was both immediately calming and a slightly off-putting.

They could hear their fathers enter the house behind them, amused chuckles floating up the stairs after the new instant friends. Jughead sat down on the rolling computer chair and was swiftly handed a remote by Archie, who started the game without pause in his conversation.

“...FP talks about you all the time, how smart you are, how you write all the time, how good of a brother you are to Jellybean.” This speech easily could have come off as a dudebro following his daddy’s orders and being nice to the new kid, but every word sung with sincerity.

“Yeah, FP talked about you too,” complete lie, but Jughead felt he knew enough about Archie for it to carry, “And I got to say, for a jock, you are not half bad Andrews.”

Archie let out a laugh as he quickly attacked a figure on the screen, “I’m glad you are here Jug, kind of feels like you and me have been friends for a while...ya know what I mean?”

Oh, if only Archie knew.

As they sunk further into playing a game, they easily fell into easy conversation, movies (Archie was an action and frat comedy kind of a guy, but had an odd fondness for old classics), hobbies (Jughead liked to write which Archie found impressive, and Archie played sports, but also dabbled in music and the high school musical, surprising Jughead) and landing on school activities, just as Fred brought up a fresh extra large meat lovers pizza, and an extra large supreme.

“There are three more pizzas downstairs,” Fred offered sheepishly, and added probably because he felt like an explanation was needed , “There was a coupon.”

Now recovering from the shock of meeting Archie, the boy of his girl’s dreams, his appetite had returned full force. He had already finished one slice of pizza and had consumed half of the second by the time Fred had finished his apology. “No problem Mr. Andrews, the Jones men never cower in the face of food.” Archie was laughing beside him as Fred gave him a kind, amused smile as he left the boys to the game.

“Dude didn’t you just have dinner?” Archie asked taking a bite of his first slice, just as Jughead polished off his third.

“Got a point there Arch?” Archie made a comment about Jughead being a human garbage disposal as they laughed and continued their game and conversation.

It was nice, how easy this was. Even without the jumpstart to Archie’s personality, he was certain him and Archie would have become friends anyway. In fact, his boyishness, his obsession with his girlfriend, and his sometimes cluelessness, which were not prominent in Grace’s dreams, only served to make him like Archie more.

“Even with you here Jug, I think we are gonna need some help with this pizza,” he looked up over Jughead’s head and smiled, “Oh good she is finally home.” Archie paused the game and jumped up heading over to the window.

He had forgotten.

Grace’s window faced Archie’s which meant…

Jughead slowly turned, standing up and moving towards the window on his body’s own accord. Archie may have been saying something as he texted, but Jughead could hear nothing over his heart pounding in his ears. He should not have eaten all that pizza as he was now face with a real possibility of losing his dinner (both of them) on the floor of Archie’s bedroom.

There was a light on in the girly pink bedroom, more noticeable in the fading light of day, and his heart dropped to his gut as he saw movement play on the shadows of the wall. It stopped beating completely once the blonde came into view, phone in hand.

She was wearing a white spaghetti strap tank top over pale blue shorts, clearly hunkering down for the evening, her hair kept away from her face by a high curling ponytail.

And what a face she had.

He had ached to see her face for his entire life, and now that she was in front of him, that ache turned into a burn and desire he had not anticipated. Even at a distance he could tell his comparison to Grace Kelly was spot on, with her full pink lips and wide searching eyes, eyes whose color he could not quite discern from this distance, and he yearned to learn their true hue.

Those eyes, at this moment, were trained on him.

He started slightly forward with a gasp, not realizing he had completely forgotten to breathe, and the spell between them was broken, as she flitted out of sight.

Archie beside him, scrunched his face and shook his face in confusion as he began texting again, muttering “What the hell, Betty.”

Betty.

Betty. Betty. Betty. Betty.

Of course it was.

Archie let out a sigh and headed back towards the bed, picking up his controller to resume the game, tossing his phone to the side, “That’s my best friend Betty Cooper, she’s not feeling great, but she apologizes for being ‘so rude,’” he punctuated with air quotes as best as he could with his grip still on his controller, “But I promise you will meet her tomorrow. She usually walks to school with me anyway.”

Even though he knew the answer, Jughead could not help but ask, “Best friend, huh, with the girl next door,” and though he hated himself for it, he waggled his eyebrows towards Archie to clearly sell his innuendo.

“Oh no, man, it’s not like that, we have always been and always will be just friends, we’ve never seen each other that way.” Well, one of you didn’t, simple ginger fool.

With how beautiful she was, he wondered, unkindly, just how much of an idiot Archie had to be.

Idiot or no, Archie still managed to beat him at Call of Duty, just as FP called for Jughead to head back home. He said goodbye to Archie, who again, parted from him with a bro hug, that Jughead looked forward to getting accustomed to. As he and his dad ambled to the truck, Jughead glanced a look at Betty’s bedroom window, where a blonde head had reappeared, watching them leave.

And although it was self serving, he could not help but whisper, “Sweet dreams, Betty Cooper.”

He could not wait to truly meet her the next day.

***

Towards the end of his first day at school at Riverdale High, Jughead had concluded that Betty Cooper was avoiding him.

The odd cadence of her dreams, and the chaos of the dreams themselves indicated to Jughead that not only did Betty not sleep well, but that her mood was frazzled, to say the least. In one of the dreams her mother had locked her in a basement while she threw down college applications in the form of paper airplanes. Another found her officiating Archie and Veronica’s wedding, and running off, once everyone saw that she was completely naked. The last dream Jughead remembered was Betty in her room, yelling at what he believed was Leo on the opposite side of the door, telling him he should not see her like “this”. Whatever “this” was.

Upon waking, even though Jughead had slept through the night, he too, did not feel well rested. He could only imagine how Betty was feeling. Jughead always made an effort to ignore the naked dreams, acknowledging that even though the image was hazy and most likely not a representation of her actual body, she did not give him consent to view any version of her. If he was going to invade her dreams every night, he could at least afford her that privacy.  His horny teenage self, and the fact that he saw the girl herself the night before made this more of a difficult feat this morning.

His obsession with that fact confirmed what he suspected last night, he was attracted to Betty Cooper. It should not have been a surprise, since he was already so attracted to her soul and personality, at least as it appeared in her dreams. Her physical beauty was more of an illumination of that outline, as opposed to the content of his attraction.

Regardless, he could not deny that his body had been attracted to hers. And they had not even properly met yet.

A meeting it seemed, Betty Cooper was intent on delaying.

Upon reaching the Andrews’ that morning, they were told by a severe looking Alice Cooper that Betty had gone off to school early, wanting to work out at the school gym before class. Alice was always a figure of foreboding and severity in Betty’s dreams, and he assumed some of that attitude was exaggerated in her hyper aware dreamstate. Having met Alice Cooper in the wakefulness of reality, he sadly concluded that the dream version of Alice was faithful to her real life counterpart.

And so these comparisons become the constant of his day. Meeting people from Betty’s dreams and contrasting them to his own wakeful versions. Archie, it seemed, was friends with everyone, so by the time the bell rang in the last class, Jughead had been introduced to all the major and even minor players in Betty’s dreams and presumably life.

The ongoing theme of these intros was that Betty Cooper, even in her subconscious, was far too kind to this world.

Reggie Mantle and Chuck Clayton were every bit the charicactured jocks that she dreamed, but they were even more obnoxious in person. They made unoriginal Donnie Darko references to Jughead’s dark and plaid aesthetic, and only stopped once Archie made it clear that Jughead was his friend. Betty, bless her, had attributed some self-acknowledging humor to their personalities, a trait that was missing in their real life counterparts.

Ethel Muggs, was seen in Betty’s dreams as a quiet kind girl of amiable company by Betty. Showing up as a background character who was always passionate and supportive. Waking Ethel was barely hiding a set of crazy eyes that fell on Jughead twenty too many times during the day. In his last class of the day, seventh period history, he noticed a heart on her notebook that bore the proud sigil, “ETHEL JONES”. Jughead made a mental note to keep the bunnies away from that one. Yikes.

But the most terrifying creature Jughead encountered that day was Cheryl Blossom in the fiery flesh. She was cruel and callous with her barbs, calling Jughead a hobo and asking how it felt to be his own father’s charity case. And while Jughead could see why Betty would respect the power that Cheryl wielded over the school, it seemed to Jughead that respect was not something Cheryl Blossom had for any other living soul.

Not all of the comparisons were unflattering. Kevin and Archie continued to be the amiable and deceptively loyal friends that Betty, too was faithful toward. Veronica Lodge, though not Jughead’s particular cup of tea, clearly loved Betty and was concerned for her friend’s absence during lunch, asking where she had run off to in between relatively innocent displays of affection with Archie. Jughead idly wondered if Veronica would have been as openly affectionate if Betty had been sitting at their table.

Her absence permeated throughout the day, causing more annoyance as the she remained a phantom. Jughead should have had three of his seven classes with Betty, but she had magical excuses for all of them. Since it was the first day of class, and Betty Cooper was apparently universally beloved by all the teachers in the school, they allowed such behavior without question.

Now that the entire day had passed, Jughead was irritated and confused as to Betty’s evasion. What was the girl hiding? Had he really looked that offensive the night before? That thought triggered an old feeling of rejection he had not felt since middle school.

Jughead carried this irritated mood with him to the guidance counselor’s office, who’s cheery attitude became more artificial as the meeting progressed. After failing to inspire and sort of enthusiasm in her new charge, she finally commanded him to join an extracurricular activity. Sensing he had no choice in becoming a joiner, Jughead asked if there was a school paper. He was the editor of the sparsely run weekly paper at his high school in Toledo, and was hoping to keep that bullet point on his college applications for his senior year in Riverdale. The counselor practically moaned with gratitude as she mentioned that the Blue and Gold was having their first meeting today, and that in fact, it only started ten minutes ago and she would be happy to escort him to the meeting immediately.

He followed the counselor down the hall and through an old wooden door that creaked with the effort. While previously he held as much affection for the counselor as she held for him, right now he felt as if he could kiss her.

Because she led him straight to Betty Cooper.

“Ah Miss Cooper, I have brought you a new recruit” she surveyed the room briefly, noticing the emptiness of it, “And it appears you could use all the help you can get.”

Betty had turned with a smile to the door, but now she seemed as still and verbose as a statue, while the gray haired lady whose name Jughead could not remember introduced him to Betty.

“Forsythe Pendleton Jones III this is Elizabeth Cooper, the editor of the Blue & Gold, I am sure you will work very well together.”  With that, the lady left the room, clearly ready to be done with Jughead and his dedication for apathy. Or, Forsythe, as she unhelpfully supplied.

Betty seemed struck with a case of muteness, a phenomena that had decidedly peaked Jughead’s curiosity. She looked adorable, in her blue jeans and sleeveless dusty pink blouse that was highlighted by a beautiful pink tinge that was deepening in color on her cheeks. Though he could not deny that this reaction fascinated him, he did not wish to cause her any further torment.

“It’s Jughead Jones actually, and we half met through the window last night. Though you spurned Archie and I for pizza and video games. I was worried I may have scared you away.” He never spoke with this much vulnerability. Ever. But the need to hear her voice in his own ears was bordering on physical pain, and he was hoping he could coax that speech out of her through his own awkwardness. His Grace was always eager to ease people’s stress, after all.

It was exactly as if a switch had been turned. Betty put on a show smile and stepped forward, barely concealing the tightness in her voice as she said, “Welcome, Jughead to the Blue and Gold, and apologies for last night, I was feeling a bit under the weather.” She gestured, a little over grand, to the space and dusty computers around her, “We actually do have other writers, but they were unable to make it today. We will be having another meeting tomorrow to discuss assignments, so feel free to return then.”

It was a clear dismissal, but Jughead had waited seventeen years to meet his Grace Kelly, and he was not going to waste another second.

“Or we could discuss what I would be interested in writing now, since you’ve already commandeered the editor’s title.” She flashed her eyes at him, barely hiding the fire. He wanted them to burn. “Or you could continue to hide from me as you have been doing all day.”

She could not hide her indignation now, “I have not been _hiding_.” She sputtered a bit before adding, “What possible reason could I have to hide from you?”

“An answer I am dying to know myself.”

All pretense of formality was gone from Betty’s expression as she haltingly responded, “I have heard from my mother that you have had a...criminal past…” Betty winced noticeably. To her credit, it was true, he had done some time in juvie as a young teen in some rather violent defense of his sister, but it was clear that was not the real reason she was avoiding him. Just as clear, was her disdain toward herself for using that information as an excuse.  “I’m sorry, that is a horrible thing to hold against someone.”

Letting that clearly empty excuse for her avoidance fall, he switched gears, “You can make it up to me by giving me the feature writer position.”

The noise Betty returned was half snort, half squawk and Jughead found it immediately adorable, “The feature writer position?! This is your first year at the paper we have other more experienced writers…”

“I was the editor at my school paper in Toledo, and since that position has already been stolen…”

“Assigned and earned!”

“Nuance. What I am saying is that I am the only writer dedicated enough to show up to the inaugural meeting and that has to stand for something.” He smirked at her, deeply enjoying the reaction he was getting out the tease. Jughead had never had cause to flirt in his life, but this feeling was addicting, at least as long as it was attached to Betty. It felt like flying and falling at the same time, filled with endorphins that made him giddy and brave, but also balancing on a precipice that could crush him should she decide to reject him.

Betty had crossed her hands over her chest, and Jughead had to work very hard not to notice how that accentuated her breasts underneath her buttoned blouse. The sly quirk to the corners of her mouth started to grow. “Fine, you can audition for it.”

“Audition?”

“Today.”

“Today?! It’s after school!”

“I am sure Archie invited you to the Twilight Drive in tonight with all of our friends,” she paused and Jughead nodded confirming her assumption, “Well you can deliver that piece to me then, and we will go over it at Pop’s after the movie.”

“That only gives me two hours, Betts.”

Betty stopped her flirtatious banter, immediately ceasing as she breathily responded, “I never told you I went by Betty.”

“Archie told me,” True and smooth, Jonesey.

The relief washed over her face as her smirk returned to her lips as she walked toward him. The combination of her saunter and that look was doing strange things to Jughead’s heartbeat.

“Fine...Juggie,” Jughead snorted at the nickname, “I want you to write 500, edited, feature writer-worthy words on why football as an institution is important to the high school experience.”

Jughead’s eyebrows lifted straight to his hairline, “Sports?”

Her beautiful smile widened to show her teeth, though her mischievousness remained, “Yes, or I will assign you to cover all the football games for the rest of the season, and have all of your articles authored by Forsythe Pendleton Jones III.”

“Now that’s just cruel Betts.”

“I appreciate proper motivation, Juggie.”

God this woman and her sass were going to be the death of him.

Jughead had a few inches on Betty so she had to peer up at him as he stepped closer to her personal bubble, but she defiantly held her ground, a devilish gleam to her eyes. “So what do you say, see you in two hours?” Jughead accepted that it might have been wish fulfillment, but he swore he could see hope in her eyes.

“Challenge accepted, Betty Cooper.”


	2. Some of them want to abuse you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for this being so late, bless you for your patience, the next chapters will come quicker.

As he hoped and anticipated, Jughead Jones had been the feature writer for the Blue & Gold just over two months now, a feat managed by compromising his own personal stances in regard to team sport activities.

That night of Betty’s challenge, he had been late reaching the Twilight Drive-in by ten minutes, drawn in as he was to finishing the episode of  _ Friday Night Lights _ which he used as shameless inspiration for his sportball piece of fluff. As the Panthers celebrated their victory, he embarked on what he hoped would become his own triumph. 

Walking up to what he vaguely recognized as Fred Andrews’ truck, he relished the concerned expression Betty was sporting, worrying at her lip and obsessively checking her watch as she avoided both the movie and the soft-core spectacle unfolding on the opposite side of the truck bed. After dropping the folder unceremoniously on Betty’s lap, he boosted himself into the truck’s bed with a helpful assist from the tire. Archie and Veronica briefly untangled themselves from each other to give Jughead a warm greeting before winding themselves back together, ignoring the screen altogether. 

“They look cozy.”

Betty gave him a sideways smirk as she pulled out the article, and gave it a cursory once over, not being able to read the entirety of it in the poor light. She quirked an eyebrow after spying something odd at the bottom of the page, and glared at Jughead once she realized what it was.

“You did a word count to exactly 500 words.”

“Your instructions were precise. Column space is a commodity.”

She batted at him then with the folder, but could not hide the beginnings of smile. “Want to head to Pop’s early? Archie and Veronica won’t notice our absence, and I would like to get out of here before they burst into song again.”

Jughead drew his eyebrows together in confusion as Betty nodded to the screen, only now drawing Jughead’s attention.

“Please tell me this is a cruel joke.”

Spying a floppy haired Zac Efron, he realized with horror that  _ High School Musical _ was playing on the screen. He felt ashamed of the drive-in for torturing a perfectly good screen with the made for TV nonsense.

“Double feature actually, they will play the sequel after this. Brings in quite the crowd.”

Jughead let out a very unmanly like squeak that seemed to entertain Betty, but he was silenced as she grabbed his shoulder for support while leaping out of the truck. Jughead followed just behind her with an equally graceful leap, and not waiting for her to change her mind, lead her in the direction of his bike.

“You know,” Betty’s voice was attempting to be casual, but she did not quite succeed. “Old Man Danvers who owns this place is looking for a new hire to run the projection room, and choose the movies. You seem like the cinephile type, maybe you should apply? Save the screen from teen musicals?”

It was a brilliant idea, but he felt the need to crack a joke to ease the tension he could  feel rolling off of Betty, “What, did the plaid give me away?”

“The beanie, actually.”

“Ah, of course.”

They walked in silence until they reached the bike, situated near the bleachers used for excess seating and youths too young to drive themselves, but too old to be forced into quality time with their parents. Jughead sent up a silent prayer of thanks that he had an extra helmet, and he chuckled as he passed it over to a horrified looking Betty.

“Hey, it’s this or you head back to the truck bed ‘o love.” Given that alternative, she did not hesitate to grab the helmet and straddle the back end of the bike, wrapping her arms around him as she settled onto the seat. Jughead had a feeling that if he could dream, the grip of her hands around his waist would surely haunt him each night.

The ride was too short, but thankfully Betty seemed in no rush to vacate the booth that they commandeered once they reached Pop’s. Two baskets of fries, one basket of onion rings and five milkshakes later (One and a half for Betty and three and a half for Jughead) the new beanie-clad boy was freshly minted as the feature writer for the Blue & Gold. An entire pen’s worth of red ink and a modicum of his sanity had been sacrificed to the cause, but the satisfaction of putting that pleased smile on her face and the slight pink in her cheeks was worth the considerable effort.

“Well, seeing that you have already written your piece for the ‘Welcome Back’ issue...after edits of course,” Jughead snorted at that as Betty continued, “You can assist me with the edits and layout.”

Jughead let out a gust of a laugh, “Sounds like you are taking advantage as my previous prowess as big city editor.”

“Jug, it was Toledo, and it was a high school newspaper.”

Jughead’s teasing faltered a little bit, a slight off-putting feeling buzzing at the edges of his consciousness. Although there were plenty of reasons for her to have that information, he could not help but ask, “I never told you I came from Toledo.”

Her gaze did not waver, “You are big news in this small town, was not that difficult to find out,” She quickly grabbed the last cold fry that Jughead had overlooked from the basket and popped in her mouth, taking her time to chew before she spoke again, this time with a noticeable tightness in her tone.

“Are you saying no, then?”

Her stance and her demeanor were teasing, but her eyes could not hide their doubt. 

“Oh, you can count me in, Betts.”

It became a pattern for them over the next two months, editing and bickering into the late hours of the evening, sometimes at Pop’s, usually in the Blue & Gold with take-out debris scattered around them. While still only holding the status of lowly writer, she turned to him with increasing frequency for assistance with the layout and editing, a favor he endlessly teased her for, but would never deny.

Not that late night editing sessions were the only new and welcome pattern for Jughead in Riverdale. While the popular elite had yet to acknowledge Jughead’s presence beyond a sneer or a snide remark, he had found a niche with what he assumed were the best people in Riverdale. 

Archie, though thoroughly the well built All-American with friends at his beck and call, seemed to always choose Jughead as his partner in crime. The Andrews’ became a second home, and he spent more time there playing video games or just doing homework than he did at his dad’s place (its convenient location next to the Cooper residence was an obvious perk).

During the school days he sat next at a lunch table with Veronica, Archie, Kevin and Betty with an occasional cameo from the pleasant-enough-jock Moose Mason and his girlfriend Midge Klump. Ethel Muggs seemed to circle the table like a shark, but Betty’s surprisingly effective kind glare kept her at bay, an act which earned his eternal favor. After school, he often headed with Kevin to meet with the Southside crew. He fell into an easy friendship with Fangs, Toni and Sweet Pea, sharing shades of the same childhood that silently bonded them into an unfortunate secret club. 

The camaraderie increased when, two weeks into the the school year, Southside high was set aflame and reduced to rubble. Its student and teacher populous was distributed unevenly among the surrounding schools, but luckily the entirety of their afterschool crew was allocated to Riverdale High, and a bigger lunch table was acquired.

It was as if Riverdale was his missing piece, and vice versa. He fit into this world and these people’s lives with a sense of relief, as if his lack of presence was a fly batting at their equilibrium, and now that he was finally here everyone was at rest. It was a narcissistic thought, Jughead admitted, but he held no other explanation for how perfectly molded this life was to him and his hidden fears and preferences.

For instance, early in October, when the day marking the anniversary of his appearance in the world dawned, he entered the school with an acute sense of dread. Jughead had always hated his birthday, used annually as a weapon by his mother, to remind him of his inconvenience in her life. Sure, there had always been presents, and cake (delicious, delicious cake), but the aura of celebration was undercut by the deep blackness of resentment. On his eighteenth birthday, however, not one person made a peep, including his father who promised a dinner on him, but no other form of revelry. At first he attributed this to the lucky fortune of his newness in town, but during lunch he spied Ethel Muggs approaching their table, eyes wide and trained directly on Jughead. Betty, as light as a sprite, intercepted Ethel with a kind redirect, holding quiet discussion just out of reach of their table. Not quiet enough that Jughead did not hear the dreaded “birthday” word escape Ethel’s lips. His other lunch companions continued their conversation uninterrupted, Veronica specifically drawing his attention foolishly back to their discussion on what Kevin should choose for the fall musical. 

After school, Jughead waited for Betty to finish with her Vixen practice in the Blue & Gold offices. They went to print the next day, and they had a work date. Jughead insisted in his head on calling it a date, lord knows he met the flirting quota to fit that label, as clumsy and bantering as his attempts may be. Just after five, Betty entered the room, hiding her hands behind her back.

“I want to be clear about something.”

Betty’s face was solemn, as if she were preparing for an attack. And while their conversations frequently turned heated, Jughead thought she should know better than to expect any real argument. At least that is what he believed until Betty pulled her hands from behind her back, revealing a single cupcake, sporting one candle, and a lighter in the other.

“Look, Bett–”

“Shush. I have a speech and you are just going to stand there and listen to it.”

Jughead let out a huff, but her stare was unnerving so he shrugged and attempted a non committal, “Sure.”

“Today is your eighteenth birthday–”

“Really? I wish someone had told me…”

“No, you don’t. That’s the point so do not interrupt me.” She gestured with the cupcake so vigorously he was afraid the candle might launch itself in his direction. He threw up his hands in surrender before crossing his arms in front of his body, steeling himself for the trite and obligatory sentiment.

“Today is your eighteenth birthday. And for whatever reason you hate this day, at least that is what your father has lead me to believe. I made sure that no one mentioned it the entire day and you seemed relatively relieved by that, so I assume I made the right choice.” Betty’s face softened a bit as she continued, moving closer to Jughead. “But, I need you to know that I think your birthday is a happy day, and something to be celebrated.” Betty took a shaky breath and focused on the blackboard behind Jughead’s beanie, “I am glad that you came to Riverdale.” Betty backed away and placed the cupcake and lighter on a nearby desk so she could clap her hands together. Her voice shaked off its vulnerability as she adopted her too-cheery rouse-the-troops voice, “So tonight you and I are going to work on this newspaper, we will argue about which stories are truly front page worthy and we will eat the cake that I baked you and the dinner your dad is bringing from Pops. Unless of course you would like me to rally the troops for an impromptu birthday celebration. Your choice.”

Jughead just gaped at this girl.

He could not muster enough of a personality change to alter his opinion on his birthday. He still chose to hate it, but somehow it had brought him the first celebration he had looked forward to in his relatively short life. In fact, spending an evening with his friends, finally getting to choose the music because it was his day, and being treated to an endless supply of burgers seemed like almost the perfect birthday.

Almost.

“You made me an entire cake?”

Betty looked relieved, but only cracked a small smile, still wary of eventual rejection, “I did not think I could gracefully hide an entire cake behind my back.”

The decision was simple, as much time he could get with Betty without sharing her was a gift, especially now that her dreams had been hampered. Soon after the school year started, Jughead had spied sleeping pills in Betty’s backpack, unsurprising given the amount of stress and extracurriculars. It did however, have the unfortunate side effect of making her dreams subdued and tranquil, if she dreamed at all. And while he hated the loss of that window into her mind, it just threw into relief how vibrant and alive Betty was in the waking world. 

“I think the fewer people I share with the better, Betts.” Jughead said, as way of a decision.

Betty smiled so brilliantly Jughead felt smug for being the person to inspire it, she spun towards the door saying, “I will go get it from the cafeteria fridge,” she spun back again so quickly her ponytail whipped at her face, “Promise me you will be here when I get back?”

“I would never leave you, Betts.”

Betty slowly blinked at him, taking a slow intake of breath before resuming her task. Jughead let himself sit in the happiness of a day that previously brought only self-doubt and misery. He should have known in Riverdale it would feel different, surrounded as he was by these people who accepted him without reservation.

As October unspooled from the calendar, he tried to enjoy the feeling of this, this belonging. But his entire now eighteen years of existence had wired him to prepare for the windfall. Nothing good ever lasted in his life, good fortune was not his destiny, and he found he could not trust in the happiness he had found in this small town. The best he could hope for was to enjoy the small windows of joy before they were ripped away by time, distance, or the Jones’s bad luck.

***

“I’ve got us a new feature.”

Betty smacked down a folder in front of Jughead, gaining his attention as he shrugged his headphones off to look at a rather manic looking editor. They were the only ones present in the Blue and Gold office, the others suspiciously running late.

“Us?”

“Considering that I have provided this significant lead, you could use my investigative excellence.”

Jughead gave a snort at that, but did not let it delay him from inspecting the contents of the folder. Hidden between the manila flaps he found a few handwritten pages, a stapled manual of a copied book, and an office registry of the Southside students and teachers who had been transferred to Riverdale. Betty tapped the screen on her phone before handing it to him, instructing him to look at the photos first. He squinted in concentration as he searched his mind for the setting of the photo. The lighting was dark, and though Betty was a woman of considerable talent, photography was best left to Jughead. They were also slightly out of focus, as if taken in a rush. He did notice a broken blackboard, with something strange written on it...chemical formulas maybe?

“Where was this taken? I am assuming you want me to have some opinion on that raggedy looking blackboard?”

Not bothered by his snark, Betty pulled up a chair to sit next to Jughead, sitting close enough so that they could both view the screen and also so Jughead could notice that she changed her shampoo from lavender to vanilla.

“It’s an old, pretty much unused storage closet down the hall from the science labs. It was part of the old original structure of the school so it's out of the way of everything. Mostly used to store old junk, like broken boards. A broken board that has a changing code every Friday morning.”

“Several suspicious things. One. Why does the school keep jagged pieces of blackboard in a storage closet rather than throwing them away? Two. Yes it’s strange that there is some changing message–”

“Code!”

“Code...sure...it’s strange that there is some changing code that someone is maintaining. Three. Why, exactly have you been monitoring this blackboard to know that it changes, and more specifically how do you know it only changes on Fridays? Four. Why does this school not use whiteboards like every other self respecting school in the 21st century?”

Betty was sitting back in her chair, amused waiting for him to finish his ramble. “So let's start with your strange fixation on the blackboards. I have no idea why Riverdale keeps old blackboards, but I do know that Weatherbee hates the smell of dry-erase markers. Don’t ask. Maybe he likes the smell of chalk and keeps the boards around for some sort of weird–”

Jughead clapped his hands together startling Betty who glared at his impatience.

“So you are the only one who gets to ramble?”

Jughead was too invested in the unanswered questions and the remaining evidence in the manila folder to engage in any real exchange of banter, so he just waited silently until Betty continued.

“Right, onto the more pressing questions. About a week after Southside merged with Riverdale high, the two office keys for that storage closet went missing from the main office.” Jughead nodded, Betty was an office aide during fifth period, and was privy to most goings on in the school, providing him with countless leads and inside information for his articles relating to school business. The job also was responsible for Betty discovering his date of birth. Blessing and a curse that job was.

“I have a copy of Principal Weatherbee’s master key–”

“You have watched entirely too much Veronica Mars.”

“I’ve been rewatching in preparation for the miniseries, don’t judge.”

Now that she said as much, Jughead remembered her sleeping-pill-dreams recently took place on a beach with an overly friendly pitbull barking idly at the waves.

“Of course.”

Misunderstanding him for sass, Betty smacked him on the shoulder with one hand and put her index finger against his lips with the other, leaving it there to guard from future interruptions. Jughead had to remind himself it would be deeply inappropriate to flick her finger with his tongue.

“Only Weatherbee, myself and the janitors have the other keys...and the janitors all share one from the master chain. Ergo, the thieves of the stolen keys are the ones leaving the messages on the board, and most likely, one of them came from Southside High, given the timing.” Well that explains the list at least.

Jughead raised his hand, and Betty quirked an eyebrow in clear warning as she slowly removed her finger.

“How do you know that it's the not the janitors leaving messages for each other. That actually sounds like it would be a fun investigation. The secret lives of janitors spreading gossip through an unused blackboard in a storage closet…” Betty let out an exasperated gasp, and Jughead finally took the hint she was in no mood for his tangents so he amended, “Yes, but then why are the keys missing from the main office, and only for that closet. Got it.”

Betty opened the folder in front of Jughead and took out the handwritten pages, and even though the writing was not scrawled in red ink, he recognized Betty’s handwriting.

“I started recording the messages about a month ago, but I did not crack it until last night.” Under her breath she added, “Nearly drove me insane, too. I knew I recognized this code from somewhere but could not for the life of me remember.” As he stared at her translation, she flipped through the stapled photocopied pages of what he now saw was a Nancy Drew Secret Code book, to a particular passage detailing how to translate the code. As he glanced back and forth at the documents he had to stifle his realization. These messages appeared in her dreams too. Since they were so calm and hampered, they were just inscribed into the sands of the beaches in Neptune.

The translated messages were split into three parts, a four-digit number, a two character abbreviation, and two character letter and number. Betty had scribbled her own notes dissecting the code into more comprehensible messages.

**1200 BA 2H -** _ 12 Brown’s Auto $200 _

**1000 SH 3H** _ \- 10 Southside High $300 _

**0930 WW 1G** \-  _ 9:30 White Wyrm $1,000 _

**1030 SH 9H -** _ 10:30 Southside High $900 _

**1100 WW 8H** \-  _ 11:00 White Wyrm $800 _

“Okay...so time, not using 24-hour clock, but I will assume night time. Location? And price? I guess it makes sense but how did you get that from one letter and number…” Jughead glanced up at Betty who looked positively giddy. 

“You are not thinking of  _ why  _ these messages are being shared. Why would someone go to lengths to code messages on a blackboard no one looks for anyway, and even when translated the message is still written in abbreviated code.”

Jughead shook his head in disbelief, “Drugs...”

“Jingle Jangle to precise. It's the ridiculously named drug of choice among high-schoolers, so I am thinking the buyer is a student. The supplier either is a student, teacher, or has another legitimate reason to be in the school during normal operating hours on Friday.” 

Betty looked entirely too excited for someone discussing an illegal drug trafficking operation in a high school, no less, but he could not fault her. His own fingertips had started to twitch with the anticipation of an investigation of this magnitude. 

“I shared with this with Sheriff Keller, but he did not fully buy into the legitimacy of a code derived from a Nancy Drew manual.”

“I understand the skepticism, but this seems enough to warrant an investigation.” Jughead’s tone dripped with dismay. He had met Kevin’s dad once, and while he was cordial, for Kevin’s sake most likely, he clearly held a prejudice towards anyone with ties to the Southside.

“I agree but that means it is up to us.” She did not seem too disappointed to be saddled with the task, and Jughead shared the feeling. They were teenagers with a misplaced sense of invincibility after all.

“Considering there is no day specified, and that the messages change every Friday I assume that meeting is tonight?” Jughead asked, suddenly understanding why no other reporters were invited to this particular staff meeting. 

“What do you say Jug, up for a stake-out?”

***

“Hey Dad, can I borrow the truck tonight?” 

FP peered at Jughead from behind his reading glasses, and gave him a smirk before going back to his work on his bills that were scattered on the kitchen table. It gave Jughead an odd sense of relief to notice that FP looked calm and unconcerned about a chore that used to cause him monthly turmoil.

“Sure son, hot date?”

“Uh...no just working on some Blue & Gold stuff with Betty, don’t want to take the bike because it’s supposed to rain,” he added lamely. Jughead used to be a much better liar, but he still had a feeling he was flushed from the words “Betty” and “date” being used is such close quarters.

Sensing blood in the water, FP dropped his pen and took off his glasses, smiling at Jughead knowingly, which only increased the intensity of the redness of his face.

“You certainly have been spending a lot of time with Miss Cooper.”

Jughead crossed his arms and attempted to lean casually against the kitchen counter, but misjudged the distance so he had to stagger back a few steps to recover.

“She’s my friend, and I spend just as much time with Archie as I do with her.” He tried to mentally calculate the amount of time spent with each of his friends and it did not take long for him to recognize the lie.

His father clearly knew this, but let Jughead maintain the illusion of sauveness. “Sure, Jug. I am still impressed she got you to celebrate your birthday. With a cake and everything. Tell me she had everyone sing “Happy Birthday” to you at the lunch table.”

“No, thankfully your warning to her about my birthday hatred saved me from public embarrassment.”

FP’s eyebrows drew together in a small frown, “What warning?”

Jughead sighed, hoping senility was not hitting his father so early in life, “She called you before my birthday, you told her I hated it, she listened.” Not wanting to prolong any more talk on Betty and how Jughead was putty in her hands, he walked towards his dad and motioned for the truck keys.

As FP dug in his pocket for the chain, he recalled in the faint voice of recollection, “Nope, she called to confirm she was stealing you away for school work and if I could drop off Pop’s and that’s it...but maybe I misremembered.” FP shrugged it off and threw Jughead the chain, as Jughead quickly caught the keys with one hand and spun around just barely catching his schoolbag with the other, running out the door just as his dad reminded him of his midnight curfew.

Only after Jughead climbed into the driver’s seat of the cab and threw his bag behind him, did he stop to think. 

It felt meaningful somehow, that Betty lied to him about his birthday. He did not think his father had misremembered, as Jughead thought back to Betty’s shiftiness that afternoon in the offices of the Blue & Gold. She was hiding something behind her kindness and her homemade birthday cake.

Betty was an excellent investigator, but even she could not discover facts telepathically.

Right?

***

“Jug?” Betty’s voice was soft from the passenger’s seat beside him. He looked over, but her focus was fixed on the dusty dash in front of her as she continued, “Did I do something wrong?”

While the immediate answer to her question was, of course, “no,” Jughead was having a hard time voicing a response.

He had tried to mask his confusion and suspicion as best as possible, first at Pop’s and now on their stakeout, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult.

Archie and Veronica had joined them for dinner, and handled most of the conversation, which was helpful, but as Betty kept sneaking glances and knowing looks in response to some of the couple’s more moonier statements and he could not respond, she became suspicious. She then tried engaging him directly which only worked to stir his thoughts further into the outlandish.

The more that Jughead thought about Betty’s knowledge of his feelings towards his birthday, the more his mind betrayed him with further evidence that Betty knew more about him than she should.

Where he was from. His hatred for semicolons. His love of Quentin Tarantino. How bothered he was by the incorrect use of good and well. His fear of tornadoes. 

Easy guesses, common thoughts, Jughead reasoned to himself, but then there were deeper things. 

A few weeks ago, after Jughead got off a call with his mother, he was upset because she had grounded Jellybean, taken her cell phone and refused to let Jug talk to her. Jughead almost threw his own in response, an impulse that Betty witnessed. She asked if he missed his sister, and Jughead and her had discussed her for hours. Betty talked about how although she was the younger sister, she ended up being the one to care for Polly, because their parents were never around either.

But how could she know his mom was never around? 

All these revelations were brought up randomly, and isolated from each other, making them easy to dismiss in the context of the moment. But now stringing them all together, they presented an eerie pattern that was hard to ignore. A normal, rational person could easily brush this off as an impossibility. An odd coincidence, perhaps. Betty, was a natural investigator and these conclusions were easily drawn.

It would be easy for Jughead to convince himself of this, if he were also not guilty of knowing more than he should.

Therein was the heart of the problem. He knew things about Betty that he shouldn’t, and he showed his hand more than he ought. He went out of his way to distract Betty from the outward couple-ness of Archie and Veronica. He teased her about her irrational fear of moths. They bonded over their constant preoccupation with the well being of their sisters.

What if Betty and he were bonded in some supernatural way? What if she was effected the same way by him as he was by her?

It was these outlandish thoughts that had kept him silent and brooding for the last half an hour, waiting for the clock to reach 11 and their drug dealers to show their faces. Betty had seemed preoccupied enough with going over their list of suspects and who was to do what when the culprits showed their faces that she was tolerant of his one word responses until now.

“No, you haven’t. Just have a lot on my mind.”

“Such as?” Jughead glanced back at her, and even though she was asking the invasive questions, she refused to abandon her focal point on the dash. It irrationally angered him, that she so clearly knew something but left it on him to take accountability and responsibility for the truth. 

Before he could catch himself he asked, “Were you over Archie when he and Veronica started dating?”

Betty snapped her gaze to Jughead, her eyes flashing green even in the faded light of the White Wyrm’s neon glow.

“Why would you ask me that?” She attempted to keep her tone cold, but there was a tremble in her voice that gave her away.

“It’s just clear to me that you used to have feelings for the guy, and I am wondering why someone would put themselves through the torture of watching him date your best friend if you were not over him? Did Veronica even care?” 

“Veronica didn’t know!” Betty took a deep breath to regain some semblance of composure as she refocused her gaze on the non-judgemental dashboard. “I had a childish crush on Archie that I realized would never go anywhere. Veronica did not know how I felt, and she fell pretty hard for him almost as soon as she moved here.” She seemed overly determined on convincing the dashboard of this as she added, “In fact I am glad they are together. Helped me get over it...him...the idea of him.”

Jughead felt chastened by Betty’s outburst, the confidence she revealed gained by agitation rather than trust. He wanted to say something, anything to make up for his rudeness, but he wanted to give her moment to gather herself first.

When Betty finally looked over at him, there was a determined calmness in her gaze, the same one she used when scolding her reporters or pressing a witness for the truth, and it made his blood run cold.

“I will forgive you Jug, if you answer me this, how are you so certain that I am over Archie, or that I had feelings for him in the first place?”

Well. Fuck.

Pivot, Jug, pivot.

“Are you not over, Archie?” He tried to sound suggestive but his voice squeaked like a prepubescent boy at the end of the word “over,” and Betty smirked at the change in power, not to be distracted by Jughead’s tactics.

“I absolutely am, and have been for well over a year now, long before you ever moved to Riverdale. My question to you, is how you knew 1, that I ever had a crush on Archie, and 2, your clear knowledge that said crush has disappeared.”

Jughead threw his shoulders back in a blasé way, giving the very untrue perception that he was unruffled. “I am perceptive. It is what makes me a good investigator and writer.”

“That may be true, but it is a bullshit answer, Jug.” Betty’s eyes bore unrelenting into Jughead, as she prodded him with her finger for emphasis.

Desperate, Jughead grasped at redirection, “How did you know I hated my birthday?” It was a reckless question but Jughead was too riled to observe any pretenses that they had been building between them. The bald accusation seemed to be a direct hit to Betty’s confidence however as she sat back slightly in the passenger seat.

“I called your dad–”

“Now who is giving out the bullshit answers, Betts.”

Betty turned away from him flustered, staring aimlessly at the air before her in hopes that it would help her evade Jughead’s questions. Instead she found something else, her eyes narrowing into focus on the windshield in front of her, causing her to grab Jughead’s arm with a gasp.

Alarmed by the shift in mood, Jughead followed Betty’s eyes to a shadowy alcove around the corner from the main entrance of the Wyrm. Two figures – men, Jughead guessed by their heights and builds, were huddled together, clearly in an intense conversation. The light to the alleyway was dimmed, so their culprits faces were obscured, illuminated poorly by secondhand neon.

Jughead looked back toward Betty, who was already appraising him with a questioning glance. They knew they need to get closer to make this adventure worthwhile, but doing so would put them in more danger than the average teenager should be courting. 

Knowing the risks, they both opened their doors in sync, after Jughead disabled the overhead light. As they slowly crawled out of their respective seats, they refrained from shutting their doors, leaving them ajar as they snuck closer to the clandestine conversation.

Hiding behind a dumpster, they were able to hear the conversation, but were still unable to make out their faces, Betty motioned that she wanted to move closer, but Jughead grabbed her by the elbow with a stern expression, a little annoyed with her lack of self-preservational skills.

“Come on Sugarman, demand has been down, let me just take half of the stash now, and drum up more biz next week?”

Jughead thought he recognized the voice of the dealer, some senior on the football team, a northside kid. B- something….Brock...Brandt...Brent...Brett! That’s it! Brett something. He let out a celebratory huff and was rewarded with a firm slap from Betty who glared at him while placing her index finger on her lips.

The “Sugarman” however, his face hooded, remained silent, with his hand extended for payment, unmoving and unforgiving.

“Man, when have I ever let you down? Just give me this week. This is the third payment in a row that’s over 500...how rich do you think these kids are?”

The hooded man simpled closed and opened his fist in response, underlying his apathy for the dealer’s plight. The dealer let out a heavy sigh and relented as he started digging in his backpack  for the cash. Jughead shifted to see if he could catch the Sugarman’s face in the light, with Betty mirroring his actions. Their movement, however, had the unfortunate benefit of attracting a flat faced stray cat, observing the humans as potential givers of food. Moving closer to them, Jughead and Betty stilled, staring at the feline, trying to telepathically negotiate with the animal to leave their location unrevealed.

The cat was unmoved.

The stupid orange beast starting yowling in their direction, a high pitched siren of a sound that alerted the two men in the alley to their presence. 

Brett reacted first, his already searching hand becoming more frantic as he dug through his backpack and pulled out a gun, quickly and thoughtlessly firing it in Jughead and Betty’s direction.

“You brought a gun?! Idiot! Get out of here!” The Sugarman finally spoke, as he shoved his buyer forward, prompting the scared teen to run in the opposite direction of the Sugarman, who took off into the woods adjacent to Betty and Jug’s hideout by the dumpster.

The pair did not have time to dissect or analyze the identity of the voice, as they were preoccupied with the blood on Jughead’s shirt.

“Jug!” Betty yelled, the tears welling in her eyes as she applied pressure to the damp, increasing dark spot on Jughead’s side.

“It just grazed, Betts, I’m fine...go after the Sugarman he’s unarmed!” Jughead gestured toward the woods, the leaves still rustling from the Sugarman’s hasty exit.

“I am not leaving you Jughead Jones, come on!” With a strength heretofore unknown to Jughead, Betty supported Jughead on her shoulders and as they rushed back to the truck, this time with Jughead placed in the passenger seat. Betty peeled out of the lot as more and more Serpents poured out of the bar to investigate the gunplay. Jughead prayed that they did not recognize his dad’s truck.

“Don’t you dare take me to the hospital, Betts, it's not a gunshot wound a swear.” To prove his point he lifted up his shirt to reveal his bare chest. 

There was a deep angy line running alongside his ribcage that wept red, but remained shallow. Betty glanced his way, and almost veered into oncoming traffic at the sight.

“Fine, fine...I'll drive you to the school. Get you patched up there.” 

Relief swept through Jughead, but it was brief since the ebbing of panic left him at leisure to succumb to the pain of his wound. He hissed, and the truck growled with effort as Betty clutched the steering wheel with white fists and increased their speed.

Betty parked haphazardly across two spots in the teacher’s lot since the entrance there was closest to the Blue & Gold office. Jughead focused on his breathing as Betty unlocked the doors that needed to be unlocked as they ambled into the office, Jughead doing his best to keep his blood off the floor.

“Jug, up on the table now and take off your shirt.”

Jughead paused for a moment of self-consciousness but Betty had already left the room, presumably to find supplies. He grunted, pulling himself onto the table, but kept his shirt on for the moment, not wanting to be lying on the table bleeding and half-naked when Betty returned.

Less than ten minutes had passed when Betty stormed back into the room, arms full of towels and first aid supplies. She looked so harried that Jughead took off his ruined shirt simply as not to cause her distress by his not following her explicit orders. Her face was so pale as she took antiseptic to Jughead’s wound, it only started to regain color once she saw the shallowness of the cut.

“Are you in any pain, I can break into the nurses office to see if she has anything stronger than aspirin.”

Now that the blood had been cleaned, and the wound was dressed, Jughead’s wits had started to return with force.

“No, really, Betts, its a scratch.”

Jughead watched her dress the wound, his thoughts full of their encounter outside of the White Wyrm. “Betty, you should have followed the Sugarman instead of tending after me. I would have been fine.”

Betty pressed down on final piece of tape securing the bandage to Jughead’s chest, her blush returned and brighter than her normal shade. “Jughead, you were injured, stop acting a hero.”

Jughead scoffed, trying to ignore the feel of Betty’s hand on his chest, which she had yet to remove. “Now he is suspicious, we have to think that they are going to stop using the board, so now we have no way of knowing when they will meet next.” Jughead sat up, scooting toward the end of the table.

“And if I had chased him, the Serpents would have found you and we would have been in even more of a mess.” Betty moved closer to Jughead so that she stood between his legs, their chests almost flush, as their voices continued to raise in volume.

“Come on Betty, the story is more important–”

“I’m not going to be someone who leaves you, Jug!”

Betty looked immediately remorseful of her outburst as she tried to step back from Jughead, but she was stopped by his hands on her waist, though Jughead did not remember deciding to put them there.

He was not about to remove them though.

The pair said nothing as the minutes continued to pass unacknowledged. There were many things Jughead wanted to say, and more to the point, do. Instead of any of those things, however, all Jughead could muster was a simple, “Thank you.”

The slow smile that formed on Betty’s lips was reward enough, as Jughead gripped his fingers tighter on Betty’s waist and moved her closer, their argument long forgotten.

A shrill alert on Jughead’s phone startled Betty out of his grasp. She turned away from him, moving to put away the first aid supplies as Jughead read the text from his father on his phone. It was just after midnight, and his dad was vigilant of his broken curfew. He shot off a text to Archie, asking if he wouldn’t mind covering for him with their parents, and vouch that Jughead was staying with him tonight. The redhead sent an immediate response of a winky face and a thumbs up. Jughead rolled his eyes as he relayed the lie to his father, who sent an oddly verbose text indicating his pride that Jughead was such good friends with Archie. The guilt started to gnaw at him with a force that distracted him from the pain in his chest. 

At some point Betty had left the room, presumably to replace the supplies she had pilfered for their makeshift emergency room. Jughead sighed and jumped off the table, wincing at the pull of pain on his side. He held his breath looking at the bandages, praying he would not see the red of an aggravated wound. Betty would never forgive him if he sullied her good work, but luckily the bandage remained pure white. In the clear, Jughead gingerly started to prepare his bed for the evening. It would not be the first time he had slept on the couches in the Blue & Gold, but he was determined to make the experience more comfortable than the previous times. While Jughead was not a fussy sleeper, he was not super keen on rolling off a couch while wounded. 

With one foot, Jughead pushed the old gouged table between the two sofas forward, and then very slowly, and rather comically, pushed the one couch toward the other, one small nudge at a time. After what seemed like an hour, but in actuality was five minutes, the cushions of the two sofas finally met, and Jughead clapped his hands in victory.

An echoing clap sounded behind him as Jughead spun to see Betty watching with amusement from the doorway.

“You better not have started bleeding again, Jug.”

Jughead stood tall and gestured toward his chest, indicating the still-white bandage on his chest. Whereas Jughead’s bandage remained free of a crimson stain, Betty’s cheeks suffered the opposite fate as her eyes traveled up and down Jughead’s torso. She cleared her throat and held up the blankets she had procured from somewhere.

“Had a feeling you were not up to explaining your injury to your dad tonight.”

Taking the blankets from her, he dug his hand into his pocket for his dad’s keys, “Here you can take the truck home, I’ll come pick it up in the morning since I’m supposed to be at Archie’s anyway.”

Betty looked at him as if he had grown a second head. “I’m staying here with you, Jug. My mom thinks I am staying at Ronnie’s, and I am not about to sneak in and have to explain my presence in the morning. Per usual, she’s going to be gone most of the weekend, so I’ll be in the clear come late morning.” 

Jughead’s curiosity got the better of him, “Where would you have stayed if I had remained unscathed?”

Betty’s blush deepened revealing her lie. Her mom was probably already gone for her weekend away, and Betty was covering so she could stay with him. Jughead’s feelings were torn on this development. On one hand, he was grateful and anxious, as always, for Betty’s company. On the other hand, the makeshift double couch bed, which previously looked positively roomy, now seemed suffocatingly small and intimate now that he was to share it with Betty. As Betty shut off the lights to the room, leaving them in the faint light from the streetlights outside, he thought briefly of re-separating the sofas, but Betty was already crawling over the arm of one couch and gestured at Jughead for one of the blankets. 

So this was happening.

Jughead climbed onto his own respective couch, settling himself onto his side facing Betty, who during his own couch-nesting had removed her cardigan, leaving her in only a thin white tank top. Jughead hated himself for noticing that he could not see any visible bra straps. 

Betty was also on her side facing him, as they lay in silence, wide awake. Jughead thought it should have been more uncomfortable than it was, but there was a peace and comfort to their shared gaze. It took a lot of trust in someone, to be able to exist in silence. It also took a lot of trust to ask his next question.

“Where is your mom this weekend?”

Betty snuggled deeper into her blanket, half obscuring her face, “Albany, I think. She’s been signing up for a lot of conferences and retreats. She’s gone almost every weekend.” Betty shifted again, closer to Jughead this time as she peered softly into his eyes. “Ever since the divorce last year, and Polly leaving for college, Mom has been on this insane kick to stay busy and away from her empty nest. She seems to forget that the nest is not entirely empty yet.” She must have seen something on Jughead’s face because she hastily added, “I don’t really mind, I mean she is suffocating when she is home…” Betty trailed off, hiding her gaze again from Jughead.

“Hey,” Jughead reached forward to gingerly rub her shoulder, moving to her back, causing her to shift ever closer to Jughead. “It is okay to want your Mom around.”

Betty stared at him for several heavy moments before quietly thanking him. “What about your Dad, Jug? We could find you a non-bloody shirt, and he would be none the wiser to our little adventure.”

Jughead thought briefly of lying or evading, but Betty hadn’t, and in the safety of the darkness of the Blue & Gold, he felt safe showing some of his vulnerability. “My dad used to be a drunk. It’s the reason my mom took us to Toledo. Neither JB or I remember him...like that... but my Dad makes it up to us like that is what we think of him. He is a good dad, you know, he tries really hard. But growing up with a mom who didn’t give two shits makes it seem overbearing. I needed this dad when I was thirteen not eighteen.”

“You never stop needing a dad.”

That gave Jughead pause, he thought back to what she said about her parent’s divorce the year before. Jughead had no idea, and thinking back to her dreams, he had to really dig to find any evidence of her dad, or her parents failing marriage. Her dad...Hal, he thinks he remembers...was a missing figure, quite literally in her dreams. She would be working on a car, waiting for her dad to show up and he never would. At parent teacher conferences the teachers stared silent and stoned faced at Betty and her mother, waiting for a paternal figure that would never show. Now her, mother was abandoning her too, and with her sister gone, Jughead ached for her loneliness. 

“You never stop needing a mom, either.” Jughead whispered stroking his hand comfortingly down Betty’s arm as she snuggled closer to Jug, their noses now touching.

Jughead had thought that he knew everything there was to know about Betty Cooper before he had even met her. His Grace had been his lifelong fascination, and her dreams an endless well of wonder and intrigue. He missed their potency, but he would gladly lose them forever if meant more exchanges like this with Betty. Peering into her dreams was an invasion of her privacy, unintentional or no. She did not get to to choose what she shared with him, and the honesty of those truths were something to be cherished.

Her choosing to share this with him, though, was more intimate and real than anything he had discovered in her dreams. This was Betty as she chose to be, instead of a voyeur of Betty’s truth, he was a confidante. A promotion if ever there was one.

Only a fraction of second passed when Betty’s previously sleepy eyes suddenly widened in realization. She leapt off the couch so quickly, the movement caused pain to Jughead’s side as he hissed in reaction.

“Oh! Sorry Jug...I just...where are your keys...I need to get something from my bag…”

“What could you possibly need?” Jughead’s pain made him sound far surlier than he intended.

“Just...my sleeping pills, they should be in my bag.”

Jughead let out an exaggerated sigh, “Come on Betts, you were seconds away from falling asleep. Do they even help?”

So softly that Jughead almost did not hear, Betty answered in the negative. Opening his arms wide he beckoned for Betty to come back to their makeshift bed.

Betty slowly and gingerly climbed back onto the couches, and though she was still close to Jughead, she increased the distance between them to a more respectable space. Luckily she seemed to be falling into the clutches of slumber as she let out a tired mumble.

“Good night, Jug.”

“Night Betts.”

***

The dream was warm, and more vivid than they had been in months. Betty was sitting on the edge of dock, dipping her feet into the clear water below, brightly colored fish swimming idly below the surface. Leo was there with her, sitting next to her on the dock holding her. There was no intent or lust to the embrace, just trust, and a feeling of rightness. Nothing else but the comfort of safety and peace. Betty felt so safe and warm with him, the two of them painting a picture of contentment.

Except that Leo was not quite Leo.

This time he wore a very worn crown beanie, and his face was littered with beauty marks. He looked younger, and his face wore a permanent smirk.

It was Jughead.

Jughead woke with a gasp, his eyes flying open to meet the wide alarmed green eyes of Betty Cooper. His arms her now wrapped fully around the blonde as her arms were resting against his bare chest.

Betty pushed back, away from Jughead as she sat up, her glistening eyes reflecting the streetlights filtering in through the windows.

Jughead’s breathing was shallow, and he swore he could hear his thundering heartbeat through the silence of the room. Although he dreaded the question, and the fragile peace it would shatter, he needed to know the answer.

“Betty. Am I...am I Leo?”

He didn’t breathe. He didn’t blink.

He just waited.

She could not look at him, but she nodded, a shuddering laugh bubbled out her chest as it masked a sob. She climbed out of the couch and held her cardigan across her chest as she stared at him in tearful defiance.

“Well. That must make me Grace then, huh?”

She did not wait for an answer as she fled from the room. 

By the time Jughead’s brain had caught up to reality, he clumsily fell onto the floor from the couch and ran out the door after Betty.

But his Grace was already long gone, running away from her Leo.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> All chapter titles come from "Sweet Dreams" by the Eurythmics.  
> Let me know what you think! Feel free to find me on tumblr @kesleyjo


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